Silence
The reduction in the number of Martians patrolling London allows the NUWSS hospital to open quietly. Red weed continues to choke the streets, and people still have to hide from the Martians to access help, but the wireless communication and organisation from the surviving NUWSS members provide hope for survivors.
Still at his underground base Morant and his followers toast Queen Victoria for her accession to the throne in 1837. This would have been the day of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Have been repairing my #dividedskirts and cleaning knee abrasions. But…today #IWillHelpPeople because @NUWSS has the word out. #Tired #RefreshedInSpirit #IHaveSoreKnees
The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) hospital opened today. Mother tells me I should be polite, but the women there are a bunch of trumped-up old biddies. Still, they have wireless communication. We have arranged to admit people to the hospital and evacuate those discharged through the Charring Cross station.
At the breakfast handover, we announced we could start directing refugees with medical problems to the hospital.
We toast Queen Victoria for her accession to the throne in 1837. This would have been the day of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
#Hospital is now ready for patients. #WeHaveMedicines #WeHaveEquipment
#MorningClinic done. People have to come so quietly. #hiding #streets #redweed
#InPatients We have some! But so #sick.
On the 14th day of his confinement Wells enters the kitchen, and is surprised to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a crimson-coloured obscurity.
Lookouts report a stationary tripod in Lambeth.
Vogan and I investigate the stationary tripod. There is no movement from the tripod except for crows that are pecking at something.
The local men are keen to bring it down, but we convince them it is safer to set a gunpowder charge off next to one of its legs tomorrow if it’s still there.
@GraceHarwood and I have #RelocatedFractures #BandagedWounds #antisepsis #WishIHadXrays #ClinicalReasoningIsGood
Wells is drawn out of the house he had been imprisoned in Sheen by the sight of a dog fossicking around the Martian pit. Over the course of the day we follow his progress through Kew before he breaks into the inn at the top of Putney Hill to spend the night.
In London Morant is focussed on a tripod that had been found motionless in Lambeth.
Awake early today. So much to do at the #hospital. We have supplies for now, but after yesterday, I can see that the #NeedIsGreat.
@GraceHarwoodStewart and I took shifts last night caring for our #patients. #NeedNursesToHelp
#yawn #tired #fatigue #WantToGoBackToSleep
#Meeting with @NUWSS today again. That #line. There are other words I’d like to say, but #IAmAResponsibleWoman #MedicalStudent #WhereIsOurGovernment? #HidingInBirmingham
#Sadness – lost 2 #patients last night. @GraceHarwoodStewart and I have washed the bodies and prepared them for burial. @LizCabury says that #RedWeed is helpful as it covers our activities. #StJamesPark is across the road.
Perhaps now we can do something about the #stench under cover of the #RedWeed #Martians will not see us as long as we’re careful.
#MorningClinic opens again in half an hour. #IAmHelpingPeople #StillTired #fulfilled
Wells has lain close to the peep-hole, not daring to move aside the red plants that obscures it. Once or twice he has heard a faint pitter-patter like the feet of the dog going back and forth on the sand below, and there were more birdlike sounds, but that is all, but now …
… encouraged by the silence, Wells looks out through the hole to see, that except in the corner, where a multitude of crows hop and fight over the skeletons of the dead the Martians had consumed, not a living thing in the pit.
All the machinery has gone. Save for the big mound of grayish-blue powder in one corner, some bars of aluminium in another, the black birds, and the skeletons of the killed, the place is merely an empty circular pit in the sand. Deserted!
Slowly Wells forces himself through the red weed, and stands upon the mound of rubble to see neither Martians nor sign of any Martians. He writes that: “At last, realising my chance of escape has come I begin to tremble.”
When Wells had last seen this part of Sheen it had been a straggling street of comfortable white and red houses, interspersed with shady trees. Now he stands on a mound of smashed brickwork, clay, and gravel, spread with red, knee-high cactus-shaped plants.
The neighbouring houses had all been wrecked, but none had been burned; their walls stand, sometimes to the second story, with smashed windows and shattered doors. The red weed growing tumultuously in their roofless rooms.
Below Wells lies a great pit, where the crows struggle for its refuse. A number of other birds hop about among the ruins. Far away Wells sees a gaunt cat slink, along a wall, but traces of men there were none.
As Wells later writes: “the day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that covered every scrap of unoccupied ground swaying. And oh! the sweetness of the air!”
With his first need food, Wells discovers an enclosed garden where he finds some young onions, a couple of gladiolus bulbs, and a quantity of immature carrots, all of which he secures, and continues on his way through scarlet and crimson trees towards Kew.
Lookouts report no movement of Martians overnight.
Marie, Vogan and two others are to take a barrel of gunpowder to the tripod in Lambeth
Farther on, in a grassy place, Wells finds a group of mushrooms, which he devours, before coming upon a brown sheet of flowing shallow water, where meadows used to be.
Wells settles to rest for the remainder of the day in a shrubbery, being too fatigued to push on. Since waking Wells has seen no other humans, and no signs of the Martians, though he encounters a couple of hungry-looking dogs.
No need for Gunpowder; the tripod at Lambeth had fallen, and dogs are tearing at the Martian’s corpse.
What’s left of the body is rotting flesh. Marie thinks that the Martians are susceptible to bacterial infections. If Brown was correct, they would stop coming because they can’t survive here.
Found an abandoned ale house and celebrate. This is good, but I tell Marie I would have preferred to blast their sorry hides with a heat gun. Marie refuses to work on the weapon from the fallen tripod but says that fifty arsenic rockets are ready.
One of my lookouts was a doctor by the name of Bernard Bloom. He claimed it was Almighty God that killed the Martians. He said that in our God’s infinite wisdom He used rotting animals to create a deadly miasma to smite the profane creatures. He chastised Marie for using arsenic, which would have, he said, protected the Martians from the divine retribution of the miasma. She had chosen her own way instead of God’s way.
I don’t want to repeat Marie’s response. I was lucky my French is bad. Bloom wasn’t so fortunate. I got Bloom to leave, but it was mainly for his protection. Marie had many staunch followers, and it could have got messy.
I’ve never seen Marie so angry, and she had directed anger at me in the past. Told her that everyone with an ounce of sense would be grateful for her work to rid us of Martians.
Marie suggests Vogan and I go to the Martian base in Primrose Hill to release their prisoners and ensure there are no Martian survivors.
#Meeting with @NUWSS very useful. @MilliFawcett has network up and running. Scouting parties head out at night, and food supplies have been located. #AllItTakesIsOrganisation #WeDemandTheVote #AbrogationOfResponsibility #FillingTheVoid
@MilliFawcett has located several #nurses who are relocating here. Some of our #oldies are preparing quarters for them, and have also volunteered to assist. #ThankHeavensForOldies #OldiesHavePurpose
It’s now clear that when #London was #evacuated, many people were left behind or #StayedToHelp. All they needed was #leadership #organisation and #direction. @NUWSS is #FillingTheVoid
#Nurses arrived this afternoon. Fabulous women. They’ve already organised themselves into a rotating shift pattern, so @GraceHarwoodStewart and I can sleep tonight. #SoTired #LoveNurses #TheyAreAmazing
@MarieRadiumCurie is here! #excited #SheCameToHelp #sadness #LostHerHusband #HeatRay #Martians @BreakerMorant brought her to us.
@BreakerMorant is a strange man. #IsHeForReal? #FullOfHimself #rebel #WhatsWithTheFeather
After sunset Wells struggles on along the road towards Putney, where he finds signs that the Heat-Ray had been used. And in a garden beyond Roehampton he finds a quantity of immature potatoes, sufficient to stay his hunger.
From this garden Wells looks down upon Putney and the river. To Wells the sight appears singularly desolate: “blackened trees, blackened, desolate ruins, and down the hill the sheets of the flooded river, red-tinged with the weed. And over all this—silence.”
Filled with terror at how swiftly the desolating change had come, Wells is convinced (erroneously as we know) that the extermination of mankind was, save for such stragglers as he, had been completed in this part of the world and the Martians had left, seeking food elsewhere.
Wells spends the night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since his flight to Leatherhead and on a full stomach after finding two tins of pineapples and some biscuits.
He later writes that he dreams “that night of the curate, the Martians, and his wife, and wakes to find himself sitting in bed, staring at the dark. And for the first time since his return from Leatherhead he prays, steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the darkness of God.”
On the edge of Wimbledon Common Wells meets the artilleryman he first met at Woking so many days before. The artilleryman has not seen any Martians for 5 days and they discuss his plans for resistance. And the identity the artilleryman is disclosed for the first time.
In London Toni continues to be thankful for those who were left or stayed behind. Edith Cavell, who would, during The German War, be shot by the Germans for helping soldiers of both side, organises the nursing staff at Queen Anne’s Mansion, and the oldies who have found purpose despite their abandonment.
Toni continues to struggle with her own feelings of abandonment by the government of the day, and we begin to see her political awakening as she starts to appreciate that there may be more beyond achieving the vote. Now she has begun to question who should be in government.
This is also the last we hear of Morant, who disappears while leading a force to release any humans still held prison in the Martian’s redoubt on Primrose Hill.
Woke this morning after #SoMuchSleep. #FeelingBetter #LoveNurses #LoveOldies And someone brought me a cup of tea in bed! #FeelsSoDecadent
On the edge of Wimbleton Common Wells meets the artilleryman who he had last seen at Weybridge who expounds on his thoughts about the Martians. “They”re intelligent,” Wells later records the artilleryman as saying, “and they seem to want us for food”
“First, they’ll smash us up” Wells has the artilleryman saying “—ships, machines, guns, cities, all the order and organization. All that will go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But we’re not…
“We can beat them, but to do so we have to invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be sufficiently secure to bring the children up…
“The tame ones will go like all tame beasts; in a few generations they”ll be big, beautiful, rich-blooded, stupid—rubbish! But we, the real men, will live underground, in London’s drains. People who don’t know drains think them horrible things…
“But under London are miles and miles of drains—hundreds of miles—and a few days’ rain and London empty will leave them sweet and clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for any one…
“And then there’s cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. You see? And we form a band—able-bodied, clean-minded men. We”re not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out again…
“All these—the sort of people that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used to live down that way—they’d be no good. They haven’t any spirit in them—no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn”t one or the other—Lord! what is he but funk?…
“There’s 100’s of things I saw with my eyes that I’ve only begun to see clearly these last few days. There’s lots will take things as they are—fat and stupid; and lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that they ought to be doing something. But the rest of us, the real men…
“We”ll learn—just see: 4 or 5 of their fighting-machines suddenly starting off—Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in ’em, but men who have learned the way how. It may be in my time, even—those men. Fancy having one of them lovely things, with its Heat-Ray on our side!…
“Fancy having it in control! What would it matter if you were smashed to smithereens at the end of the run, after a bust like that? I reckon the Martians”ll open their eyes! Can”t you see them hurrying, hurrying—puffing and blowing and hooting to their other mechanical affairs?…
“Something out of gear in every case. And swish, bang, rattle, swish! just as they are fumbling over it, swish comes the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has come back to his own.”
@MarieRadiumCurie will assist @SirJohnTheEngineer in analysis of #Martian samples and construction of more #WirelessDevices #scientist #HowCanSheStillFunction #sadness #HeardHerWeeping #WeAllDoWhatWeCan
#RedWeed has some white patches on it this morning. #fear #WhatNightThisMean?
Breakfast handover is a party. Marie announces she is off to join the NUWSS’ hospital. Many men want to come with Vogan and I to finish off the Martians.
Marie instructs us on the fireworks, and we set off a test rocket. I wish Mrs Curie well as she and her escort leave the Station.
The Artilleryman and Wells talked through the early morning, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where he had made his lair.
His lair was the coal-cellar, and when I saw the work he had spent a week upon—it was a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney Hill—I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in a day.
Set off for Primrose Hill. [This is the last entry in Morant’s diary]
#MorningClinic ran smoothly this morning. #nurses organised #oldies into #orderlies . But the numbers of people are increasing. @EdithCavellNurse is a mastermind of organisation. #ThankHeavensForNurses .
So far we haven’t found any doctors to assist @GraceHarwoodStewart and I. @NUWSS continues to ask all new #refugees. Fortunately our #nurses are women of experience with many skills.
Wells believed in the artilleryman sufficiently to work with him all that morning, refreshed with a tin of mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry. Wells described finding a curious relief from the aching strangeness of the world in this steady labor.
But as they work objections and doubts began to arise in Wells’ mind; but he continues to work there all the morning, so glad was he to find himself with a purpose again. Then just as Well’s mind returns to his doubts the artilleryman announces it is time for lunch.
Over lunch, in answer to Wells’ questions, his companion returns to his grandiose plans again, growing so enthusiastic, and talking so eloquently of the possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that Wells begins to half-believe in him again.
But Wells is also to begin to understand something of his quality – the stress he lays on doing nothing precipitately. After eating the artilleryman insists upon playing cards. He teaches Wells euchre, and after dividing London between them they play for parish points.
#Martians strangely silent today. No #tripods seen moving around. Are they waiting for something? #fear #apprehension
After lunch the artilleryman teaches Well’s poker, after which Wells beats him at three tough chess games. When dark comes they decide to take the risk, and light a lamp.
#Exhausted #FirstSurgery #HadToAmputate #ThankHeavensForNurses #
Met with @MilliGawcett when #AfternoonClinic was over. @NUWSS has placed @SirJohnTheEngineer’s devices across #London in strategic places. We now have #communication between groups.
@NUWSS have requested aid from #Birmingham to assist with medical needs. #NoReply #WeAreBelowTheLine #anger
@NUWSS reports some issues with reckless drunkenness. People deal with disaster in many ways, but this way seems quite ridiculous to me. #fools #idiots
@Lizcadbury suggests I view these people with compassion rather than scorn. #StrugglingWithThis #fools #idiots #ButAbandoned #CompassionWouldBeABetterResponse #TheyAreBelowTheLine #anger
@Millifawcett says that offering them purpose and organisation will help. #IHopeSo #StupidLine #WhereIsTheGovernment? #ShouldWeBeTheGovernment?
Taking a cigar, Wells goes up the stairs to look at the lights from the Martian camp blazing so greenly along the Highgate hills, where he begins to question the atilleryman’s dedication, and filled with remorse at what he now sees a wasted day resolves to go on into London.
This program has for the first time been able to confirm the identity of Well’s un-named artilleryman as Edward Mosley, the founder of British Fascism.
Mosley, the founder of the British Union, promoted the legitimacy of political violence in his work “Reflections on Violence” (1908) and other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie.
In his work “The Illusions of Progress”, (1910) Mosley denounced democracy as reactionary, writing “nothing is more aristocratic than democracy.” During the German War, Mosley was detained under Defence Reg 18D and on his eventual release retired from public life, dying in 1939.
This is the last time Wells mentions the artilleryman, but his failure to acknowledge Mosley’s name in his account of the War is often taken to be evidence of Wells disgust with Mosley’s later fascist beliefs (Wells’ being a socialist).
Was thinking about @HGWellsBro tonight. Missing him.
Hope you’re safe @HGWellsBro #sadness #WhyDidYouGoToWoking Still can’t #SayThatWord
Despite the Martian’s attack on London occurring 16 days previously, Kensington is still on fire and observers, such as Wells, watching it from across the London valley, can see the occasional orange-red tongue of flame flash up and vanish into the deep blue of the night.
Against the darkness of the rest of the city, observers might also have noticed a strange light, a pale, violet-purple fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze from the red weed.
Today, we follow Wells (to some extent a victim of the Martians) as he passes through the heart of an apparently dead London, witnessed only by the mournful cry of ‘Ulla Ulla Ulla’ in the distance.
Against this, Toni’s diary chronicles the events of this momentous day through the eyes of a survivor. Even though strange sounds echo through London, she and Elizabeth Cadbury make the trek north to collect more supplies for the hospital. Along the way, they encounter an empty Martian machine, and the first incredulous seeds of hope are sown.
Woke early again feeling thankful for #nurses. Had a decent night’s sleep. Think I’m still catching up from the last few weeks. #StillTired
Very quiet this morning. Can see a #Martian on the horizon. #NotMoving #RedWeed is now covered in white patches. #FeelsOminous
Lost another #patient this morning. Never knew it would #HurtSoMuch. Didn’t even know her, just her first name. #RIPMillie.
Rising at dawn, Wells, heads down the hill, taking the High Street across the bridge to Lambeth where 2 hrs later he finds the bridge roadway choked by the red weed. The weed is already showing signs of disease, it’s fronds brittle and bleached.
At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge Station Wells finds a man lying on the road. Wells describes him as being ‘as black as a sweep with the black dust, alive, but helplessly and speechlessly drunk.’ Wells gets nothing from him but curses.
Wells finds black dust along the roadway from the bridge, growing thicker as he heads north towards Walham Green which he reaches after an hour. To Wells the streets are horribly quiet, but he finds food—sour, hard, and mouldy, but quite eatable—in a baker’s shop.
Running low on #anaesthetic and #AntiSeptics. Trying to steel myself for another trip to retrieve supplies. #gasmask #Martians #BlackSmoke @GraceHarwoodStewart says only one of us can go. #SheHasMoreSkills
@LizCadbury has obtained #KnapSacks and will come with me. @EdithCavellNurse and @GraceHarwoodStewart will hold the fort here. We will leave this afternoon about 4pm and travel undercover of #RedWeed and #PartialDarkness. #MoonIsStillBright Full moon was on the 22nd.
#StillAfraid #SafeHere #MustGo #IKnowWhatWeNeed
As Wells approaches Walham Green the streets become clear of the black dust, and when he passes a white terrace of houses on fire; he reports that the noise of the burning was an absolute relief. Going on towards Brompton, he finds the streets quiet again.
As he walks Wells counts a dozen bodies in the length of the Fulham Road. They had been dead many days, the black powder covering them, and softening their outlines. One or two had been disturbed by dogs.
In the absence of black powder, Wells feels it was curiously like a Sunday in the City, with closed shops, houses locked up and their blinds drawn. In some places Wells notes that plunderers had been at work, but rarely at other than the provision and wine-shops.
In one place Wells sees a broken jeweller’s window, a number of gold chains and a watch laying scattered on the pavement. Farther on a tattered woman lies in a heap on a doorstep; seemingly asleep, but in reality dead, a smashed magnum of champagne forming a pool at her feet.
The farther Wells penetrates into London, the profounder grows the stillness. Wells writes that he thought it not so much the stillness of death—as the stillness of suspense, of expectation.
At any time the destruction that had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis, and had annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these houses, leaving them smoking ruins. It appeared a city condemned and derelict.
Strange sounds #ulla-ulla #haunting #whatcanitmean?
#Ulla-Ulla hurts our ears. Echoing through #DesertedLondon.
In South Kensington Wells finds the streets clear of dead and of black powder. It is near South Kensington that he first hears the howling. It creeps almost imperceptibly upon his senses. It is a sobbing alternation of two notes, ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla.’
When Wells passes streets that runs north the cry of ‘ulla’ grows in volume, even as houses and buildings deaden and cut it off. It comes to a full tide down Exhibition Road where he stops, staring towards Kensington Gardens, wondering at this strange wailing. Wells turns north.
All the large mansions on each side of Exhibition Road are empty and still, and Wells writes that his footsteps echo against the sides of the houses. At the top, near the park gate, Wells comes upon a bus overturned, and the skeleton of a horse picked clean.
The ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,’ seems to Wells to be coming from the district about Regent’s Park. He later writes how the desolating cry works upon his mind, taking possession of him and he finds himself intensely weary, footsore, and now again hungry and thirsty.
To Wells, it appears London is lying in state – shrouded in black and intolerably lonely. Coming into Oxford Street by Marble Arch Wells once again finds the black powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the gratings of the cellars of some of the houses.
We have decided to investigate. @LizCadbury and I were going out for #MedicalSupplies anyway. The sounds appear to be coming from the north. #fear #WhyAmIAlwaysFrightened #IAmWithLiz #SheIsMyRock #SoundsAreOnTheWay
#IHavePockets #IHaveGasMask #WeWillBeSafe #IKnowTheWay
Thirsty after the heat of his long walk Wells, manages-with some trouble-to break into a public-house to get food and drink. Weary after eating, Wells goes into the parlour behind the bar, and falls sleeps on a black horse-hair sofa he finds there.
Wells wakes, after dusk, to the continued dismal howling of: “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla.” After routing out some biscuits and a cheese in the bar he wanders on through the silent residential squares to Baker Street, coming out at last upon Regent’s Park.
Emerging from the top of Baker Street, he sees far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from which this howling proceeded. Wells watches him for some time, but the Martian’s machine doesn’t move.
Wells later suggests that he was too tired to be fearful. Certainly he reports that he was more curious to know the reason of this monotonous crying than afraid. He turns away from Regent’s Park and strikes into Park Road, intending to skirt the park.
Emerging 200 yards out of Baker Street Wells hears a yelping chorus, and sees a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws pursued by a pack of starving mongrels. As the yelping dies away down the silent road, the wailing sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” reasserts itself.
It is here, that Wells comes upon a wrecked handling-machine. At first he thinks a house had fallen across the road, it is only as he clambers among the ruins that he recognises the machine, its tentacles bent and smashed and twisted, among the ruins it had made.
Wells describes the machine’s forepart as shattered, as though it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been overwhelmed in its overthrow. Perhaps, Wells considers, this might have happened by a handling-machine escaping from the guidance of its Martian.
Twilight was now so advanced that Wells fails to see the blood that smears its seat, nor the gnawed gristle of the Martian that presumably Wells’ dogs had left. Evidence recently identified in @RotchWood archives to which this program had been granted special permission.
.
Wells now pushes on towards Primrose Hill. Through a gap in the trees, he can see a 2nd Martian, standing silent and motionless in the park towards the Zoological Gardens. A little beyond the smashed handling-machine he finds Regent’s Canal a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation.
Even as Wells crossed the bridge over Regent’s Canal, the sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” ceases. To Wells, it is as though it were, cut off. He later writes that ‘the silence came like a thunder-clap’.
As Wells stands there, surrounded by houses: faint, tall and dim; the trees towards the park are growing black. Around him the red weed clambers among the ruins, writhing to get above him in the dimness. And in the dark he feels night, the mother of fear and mystery, approaching.
To Wells the windows in the white houses that surround him becomes the eye-sockets of skulls, and as terror seizes him, he runs headlong down St. John’s Wood Road, and away towards Kilburn.
Finally reached #BryanstonSquare Trip was strange. #UllaUlla #Martians were not moving. Found #BrokenMartianMachine along the way. #empty #blood? Took a sample for #analysis Could it be #dead?
#RedWeed turning to dust in places #hope? #IsItReallyPossible?
Knapsacks full of #MedicalSupplies Heading home to #QueenAnnesMansions Will write more on my return.
THEY ARE DEAD. WE ARE SAVED. THINGS WILL CHANGE.
Despite the momentous events of the preceding day, Toni and Grace have no time to spend sitting around. There are too many people still needing help. Apart from a brief description of the end of Saturday’s trek. Toni continues to assist the infirm.
As we accompany Wells to the Martian’s last redoubt at Primrose Hill, from where he can look down upon the ruins of London, news reaches the Continent that the Martians are dead and aid begins to roll in.
On this day, Wells is to discover the war is over but he is not the only one, several other wanderers had already discovered this, and one man, unknown but for his message, contrived to telegraph Paris from London’s GPO (pictured) at St. Martin’s-le-Grand:
“MARTIANS OVERTHROWN – LONDON FREED”
Now, even as the sun rises over the ruins of London, the news is flashed all over the world; a thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly flash into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham.
For Wells, rising restored from his sleep in a cabmen’s shelter in Harrow Road, he turns once more towards Regent’s Park, but misses his way. Eventually he sees, in the half-light of the early dawn, the curve of Primrose Hill, and on the summit, the 3rd Martian, erect and motionless.
Later Wells writes that: ‘resolving to die and end it I marched towards the tripod.’ As he approaches he sees a multitude of black birds circling and clustering about the hood. At that his heart bounds, and he runs along the road toward it.
Wading breast-high across a torrent of water rushing down from the water-works towards Albert Road, Wells emerges upon the grass before the rising of the sun. Great mounds had been heaped about the crest of Primrose hill, creating a huge redoubt. #MartianRedoubt
Primrose Hill possessed the final and largest defences the Martians made. Closer Wells can see the birds are pecking and tearing at lank shreds of brown, hanging from the top of tripod. Feeling no fear only a wild, trembling exultation, Wells charges the hill.
Reaching the earthen rampart’s crest, the interior of the redoubt is laid out below Wells. An enormous space, with gigantic machines here and there within it, and huge mounds of material and strange shelter-places.
And, scattered about the redoubt, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and with another 12 of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians—dead!
In total there were nearly 50 Martians scattered throughout the redoubt, slain as we now know by the putrefying and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared – and which must have seemed to them as incomprehensible as any death could be.
The pit is still in darkness; but on its furthest lip, flat and vast and strange, Wells sees the great flying-machine with which they had been experimenting when decay and death arrested them. Death had come not a day too soon.
As Wells stands there the rising sun strikes the world to fire with its rays. Turning away Wells looks down the slope to where the two tripods glitter, now harmless towers of shining metal, in the brightness of the rising sun.
Eastward, over the blackened ruins of Albert Terrace and the splintered spire of the church, the sun blazes dazzling in a clear sky, and here and there some facet in the great wilderness of roofs catch the light and glare with a white intensity.
Southward, beyond the Martians, the green waves of Regent’s Park, the dome of the Albert Hall, and the giant mansions of Brompton Road are clear and little in the sunrise.
Beyond them, Wells notes the jagged ruins of Westminster rising through the haze. While beyond that the 2 towers of Crystal Palace glitter like silver rods. The injured dome of St. Paul’s is dark against the sunrise, a huge cavity on its western side.
As the sun rises over the city, Wells later writes of breaking into tears as realises that despite the swift and ruthless destruction the Martians had wrought, that this vast dead city of will once again live.
The torment was over, the healing could begin, and the survivors scattered over the country—leaderless, lawless, foodless—the thousands who had fled by sea, would begin to return; the pulse of life, growing stronger and stronger, would beat again in the empty streets.
‘In a year,’ Wells later remembers himself thinking at the time, ‘in a year…’ But this is his last rational thought for 3 days as a fugue overtakes him, and we must rely on the words recorded by others.
The news of the Martians continues to spread, and the church bells that had ceased a fortnight ago, catching the news, now ring out across England. #MartiansOverthrown
Men on cycles, lean-faced, unkempt, scorch along country lanes shouting of unhoped deliverance to gaunt, staring figures of despair. And across the Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the Atlantic: corn, bread, and meat are tearing to England’s relief.
Wells writes that for a time it seems that ALL the shipping in the world seems London bound. While an exaggeration, our own research suggests that over the next 2 months nearly 12,000 ships, totalling 27 million tons (60% of the worlds total gross tonnage) berthed at British ports.
The @NUWSS network has confirmed that the #Martians are all dead! Travelled back to #QueenAnnesMansions and had another look at the #BrokenMartianMachine on the way.
Scouted around carefully, and found #remains #HopeSprang Took samples for #analysis. Took a chance and moved normally. #ItWasDead #GotHomeFaster #MuchFear #relief
Sent message via #wireless and received similar reports from network #TheyAreDead #WeAreSaved #ThingsWillChange
Finally sat down. #exhausted #TooManyInjuriesToCount #anaesthetics #antisepsis #fractures #PeopleNeedMe #IAmHelping #SoMuchToDo
With the news that the Martian’s are dead, the army moves south to restore order, even as Queen Victoria acts to seize and protect all Martian artifacts by establishing #RotchWood to take ownership of all property previously belonging to the Martians.
Once again, Toni has little time to speculate on much except saving lives. However, her diary references her growing understanding of the politics of the time.
Victoria by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India,
To all to whom these Presents shall come Greeting.
Know by these Presents We advance create and prefer Our right trusty and well loved Cousin and Counsellor Sir John Dullanty.
And for Us Our heirs and successors do appoint give and grant onto him, and his heirs, the said name state degree style dignity title and honour of Earl of Rotch Wood.
Further We bestow on Our beloved Earl Rotch Wood All Rights, Authority, and Ownership in property belonging to our enemies the Martians, which are to be held in Our name to safeguard Our Realm.
“On advice of the Privy Council, and in witness whereof We have caused these Our Letters to be made Patent Witness Ourself at Balmoral on 26th of June in the sixtyth year of Our reign.
By Warrant under the Queen’s Sign Manual
Muir Mackenzie”
(NB Letters Patent are a legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by the monarch that grants an office, right, monopoly, title or status to a person or corporation.)
Interestingly, although the United Kingdoms Public Records Act 1958 stated that generally public records will become available for public inspection after 50 years, the fact that all properties belonging to the Martians were to be held in the Queen’s name by @EarlRotchWood remained a secret until last year.
Wells has just been taken in by a family who had remained in London during the war.
#LunchTime Now that the #Martians are dead, the #hospital is flooded with those in need. First sit down of the day. #IAmReallyHelping #LoveNurses #LoveOldies
Apparently the #army is moving south. #OhReally #NowTheyCome #WhereWereTheyWhenWeNeededThem #RestoringOrder #DoneThatAlready
@SirJohnTheEngineer has contacted the #government on behalf of @NUWSS
@MilliFawcett has spoken to #GovernmentInExile and explained @NUWSS network. #Government trying to brush her off. #WeWillNotBeBrushed #WeDemandTheVote #ThingsWillChange
More #surgeries today. Saved a limb this time. #AntiSepsisSavesLives
As Well wandered through London in a fugue, the city begins to return to life around him, while the Queen attends a service in Balmoral to mourn those lost.
For Toni, this represents a defining day. For much of July, she’s been at the forefront of things. Now, there’s an attempt to shunt aside the women who stepped up when others didn’t.
Wells’ mental health has gradually recovered sufficient for him to be informed that Leatherhead had been destroyed by the Martians.
Have just woken to the sounds of #ReturningPeople. #London is alive again!
Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, his wife Alexandria, son Edward, and grandson (later Edward VIII) attended a special service of thanks at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral Castle. It is suspected that the Queen and the Prince of Wales may have discussed her creation of #RotchWood at this time although no record of it exists.
So much need! #QueenAnnesMansions now have three floors of #patients. We need more #nurses more #doctors more #everything!
#ArmyDoctors have arrived to help!
#Angry #PushedToOneSide #ThingsWillChange #TheyWereNotThereWhenWeNeededThem
@LizCadbury got involved. @GraceHarwoodStewart and I have been reinstated. Still getting #SideWaysLooks but our #patients are on our side.
Wells mental health has gradually recovered, and with his mind assured again, the family who had taken him in are forced to inform him that Leatherhead, where his wife had stayed, had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a Martian, in the mere wantonness of power.
Meeting called at @NUWSS HQ for 2100. #ThingsWillChange #WeDemandTheVote
Huge meeting tonight. More in attendance than ever before. #THINGS-WILL-CHANGE #WE-HAVE-ALLIES